A Leap Year Episode.

Such oranges! so fresh and sweet,
    So large and lovely - and so cheap!
    They lay in one delicious heap,
    And added to the sumptuous feast
For each and all in taste expert
The acme of all fine dessert;
    So, singling out the very least
As in itself an ample treat,
    While sparkling repartee and jest
    Exhilarated host and guest,
    Of rarity so delicate
    In dreamy reverie I ate,
By magic pinions as it were
    Transported from this realm of snows
To be a happy sojourner
    Away down where the orange grows;
Amid the bloom, the verdure, and
The beauty of that tropic land,
    While redolence seemed wafted in
    From orchard-groves of Mandarin.

In dinner costume a la mode,
    Expressing from the spongy skin
    The nectar that ran down her chin
    In little rills of lusciousness,
Sat Maud, the beautiful coquette;
Her dainty mouth, like "two lips" wet
    With morning dew, her crimson dress,
A sad discoloration showed
    Where orange-juice - it was a sin! -
    A polka-dot had painted in;
    Which moved the roguish girl to say
    Half-ruefully (half-décolleté) -
"I'm glad it's Leap Year now, for I - "
    Her voice was like a moistened lute
"Shall wear the flowers, by and by -
    I do not like this leaky fruit!"
And looking straight and saucily
At cousin Ned, her vis-a-vis;
    While Will, who never dared propose,
    Was blushing like a red, red rose.

The company was large, and she
    Touched elbows with the exquisite,
    Gay Archibald, who took her wit
    And pertness all as meant for him;
Who, thereby lifted some degrees
Above less-favored devotees,
    With rainbow sails began to trim
His craft of sweet felicity;
    So mirth in reckless afterlude
    Convulsed the merry multitude,
    Who laughed at Archie's self-esteem,
    And pitied Will's long-cherished dream;
While all declared, for her and Ned -
    His face was like a silver tray -
The wedding-banquet should be spread
    Before a twelvemonth passed away.
But, ah, the sequel - blind were we
To woman and her strategy!
    For he so long afraid to speak
    Bore off the bride within a week.